The Lion's Roar
by DorianGray91
Summary: Holmes is a desperate man. His enemy, his only love and his work are lost. Officially deceased, he hides in squalid lodgings - until, compelled by severe illness, he sets out to find John - only to stumble upon a young woman in grave danger. Events explode; new mysteries need solving; Watson learns the truth. Life, and perhaps romance, still await our beloved Sherlock.
1. Chapter 1

I hope you like musical accompaniments. Because I have playlist ideas.

If you have Spotify or another online music account, use that, but Youtube will do the job just as well.

When you see a central title in bold, that's the song I'd like you to start playing whilst you read. It adds so much!

For example, the songs I'd like you to play during this chapter are:

- 'Leave', by Glen Hansard.  
- 'All The Way Down', by the same.

Enjoy and please review! I lose the will to write if I don't get steady amounts of reviews.

* * *

1

_Once, once, I knew how to look for you._  
_Once, once, but that was before._  
_But not any more._  
_Hear the sirens call me home._

* * *

He paced.  
And paced.  
Some more.  
Back around.

The floorboards creaked beneath his shoes.

Lying low.  
Lying down.  
Lying to London, lying to his enemies.  
To his friends.

He wasn't dead.  
So why wasn't he alive?  
He had no material. He had no data.

Data, data, data.  
Was there anything else? Anything worth living for?

He heaved himself into a chair, abruptly cutting off the pacing he'd been doing for the past two hours.  
He needed to hunt.  
He needed to discover things.

He couldn't afford the cocaine any more.  
He couldn't work.

_He, he, he._  
It was all about him.  
No longer about the chase, the criminal, the police officers who danced in the spotlight after the curtain had fallen, and the case was over.

It was just him now.  
Him and all his parts, laid bare upon a stage with no audience.

He didn't like being so open to himself.  
Because -  
Because she was gone, and she consumed him.

* * *

**'Leave'.**

He was alone.  
There was nobody to witness him folding up and breaking down.

He wiped away a tear.  
Another.

He held his breath to stop his chest from jerking.

He wouldn't break down.  
He wouldn't break down.  
Because it wasn't something that he did.

He leaned his elbows upon his knees, and his forehead against his laced fingers.  
And closed his eyes.  
And sucked in just one breath.

Her shocking grey eyes, the storms of oceans swirling darkly within them, the soft paleness of her complexion, the petite beauty of her nose, her dimples when she smiled, her full rich scarlet lips, the way they pressed against his mouth, the strong but feminine set of her jaw, her rouged cheekbones, her perfectly even teeth.

Her indefatigable energy, her double-edged lethality, her quick mind and quicker senses, her inability to die.  
Inability to die.

There was no question about it, though. No question this time.  
She hadn't run away.  
Moriarty had taken her from him as suddenly as a flower may be plucked from its stalk.

Moriarty's word was law.  
When he was alive.

Why had he thrown away that handkerchief?  
He could remember the smell of her Parisian perfume quite clearly now, but what of another few months? A year?  
Smells were such slippery things in the memory. The most difficult part of his job.

He could recognise a scent put in his path in an instant, when information came flooding back to him, triggered by the _deja vu _sensation that smell depended upon.  
But retaining a scent over time? Even he wasn't sure that he could pull it off.

He had thrown away the handkerchief because Watson had his eyes on him.  
Those concerned eyes.

Where were they now?

It was too early to come out into the world yet.  
Too soon even for Watson to know.  
He was utterly alone.

He should be used to it. The knack should come second nature to him.  
Being alone.  
Wasn't it what he used to do best?  
Shirley no-mates. That was him.

But Watson was gone. And _she _was gone.  
And he couldn't lose one without having the other there.

He was going to go utterly mad.  
Here. In this dingy, barely-afforded corner of London that wasn't fit for the rats, let alone himself.

Where were his belongings?  
Where was his life's work?  
Where was the familiar sense of homecoming, of comfort from his accumulated books, from his needle habit, from his small yet infinitely important experiments?

It was just him and Grief now, alone together, in this grey room, hungry.

He got up from the chair, but slowly.  
He was dog tired.  
He had never felt so tired in all his life.

He could do without food and he could do without home.  
But he couldn't do without Irene.

Her absence was paradoxical - instead of feeling like something had been ripped away from him, he sensed an indescribable weight being added unto his breast.  
As though his heart had turned to solid brass and rusted.

It fatigued him.  
He was exhausted. Of existing. Of being forced to feel so much.  
How on earth did every other human being on this earth cope with emotion?  
It was the most ridiculous type of malady he had ever encountered.

He trudged, ever so slowly, tiresomely, over to the bare mattress on its cold steel frame.  
He curled up on it, folded his knees into his chest, wrapped his arms around them, and slid his eyelids shut again.

He wished and prayed and agonised for sleep.  
He needed sleep.  
He was so tired.

* * *

**'All The Way Down'.**

But her gorgeous face was in his mind's eye, and she was watching him with a bright, fiendish smile, with her head cocked to one side and her grey eyes shining, and her dimples were showing, and he couldn't allow her face to slip away into darkness. His very subconscious rejected oblivion, to retain her painfully delicious form in his memory.

_Irene. Irene._

They were in their old hotel room, the time when he hadn't woken up handcuffed to the bed with no memory of the night before.  
She was wrapped in a silky white sheet, and her dark curls were washing over her shoulders, and she was looking up at him from her pillow with a gaze full of admiration and tenderness.

The bedroom. It was the only time that she ever pulled that face in his plain view.  
So that he could see the effect that he had upon her. So that he could see the trust underneath her skittish wariness of him.

Her body was full and curvaceous, and excuciatingly soft, as his palm traced its outlines from her shoulder all the way down her waist and over her hip, and then to her knee.

"Marry me." he had murmured, on a complete whim, only half-meaning it.  
His fingers had toyed with her ringlets, just like an artist's fingers brushed for a second along his finished masterpiece.  
As though there were nothing more significant or close to his soul.

"No." she had smirked, and planted the gentlest kiss on his chin. His clean-shaven chin.  
When was the last time he had been clean-shaven?

She had looked so incredible as she had rejected him outright.  
And his heart had swelled with love at her one word.  
She was a worthy adversary indeed.

Watson didn't know about that third, most secret time that she had made him look like a fool, and laughed at his expense.  
He had laughed with her, because he knew that anything other than _this _lifestyle would never be what he wanted.

He didn't want to marry her. He wanted her to stay this way forever.

He wanted to stay locked in eternal back-and-forth romantic combat with her.  
He wanted to love and refute her, to steal her from the jaws of death and then put her in manacles of his own making.

He never wanted to leave that bed.

On the bare mattress in the bare room, Sherlock finally fell into sleep, in the middle of reaching out to find the hand of one who was not there.

In his illustrious imagination that was swiftly turning into a dream, she clasped his fingers tightly and kissed their tips one by one. She came to his thumb, and allowed it to run over her full lower lip, like he loved to do.

She settled into his side as he threw a casual arm around her, pulling the covers closer around their naked forms.  
She looked up into his eyes with a sweet, winning stare, and he felt that he could see the whole iron-grey ocean, and its violent waves, and its cool overcast beaches.

"I love you."  
He could tell that he was dreaming because she had never said anything so sentimental in the whole time that he had known her.

He didn't care. Rather, he took his opportunity with all the fervor he had been holding back in her real acquaintance.

"I love you more. I never _have _loved anybody, until you. Darling. I shall never stop. You are the only thing that holds me to humanity. I am stone cold without you. I cannot feel a thing. Irene, let us stay here forever."

"Forever is an awfully long time, Sherlock."

"Not long enough. Especially when sleep will interfere."

"I fear that I shall sleep a terrible lot, being stuck here all my life."

"There are worse things."

Yes. There were worse things.  
He was to rediscover that when he next awoke.


	2. Chapter 2

Second update! Toot!  
Now, I'm not Arthur Conan Doyle. Therefore I am not going to be able to write an amazingly complex mystery story with loads of clever details.  
But by Zeus, I am going to try my best. Just think like Sherlock!  
Right. Let's do this.

* * *

2

_I don't know you, b__ut I want you  
All the more for that._  
_Words fall through me, and always fool me, and I can't react._  
_You have suffered enough._

* * *

In truth, he had eaten barely a thing for a week.  
His features, as they twitched in sleep, were haggard and pale. His limbs were fragile, though not yet emaciated.

In truth, he hadn't washed for days either.  
The baths he _could_ get in that awful hole weren't worth taking. He may as well bathe in sewage waters.

And the last time he had tried, he had slipped on the grimy inside of the tub and knocked his head on the tap.  
He had clasped a hand to the injured spot, and his fingers had come away bloody.

Arrogant as he was, and desolate too, he had not asked the greasy landlord for first aid or a doctor. He doubted that he would gain anything but laughter at his own expense.

The cut, then, hadn't been cleaned, and he hadn't cared.

He could always have gone to Watson; but Moriarty's people may still be about, with their eyes and ears open. If he revealed himself now there would be consequences, not to mention an uproar in the papers. His companion may be targeted. He couldn't risk it again.

Not after what had happened to her.

No, he had decided to come back into the world very quietly, and very gradually.  
Even Watson himself needed time to mourn properly before he was exposed to the truth.  
Holmes would never admit that he cared deeply enough for his partner to place this above his own loneliness.

His excuse to himself was that his bloated ego expected Watson to mourn frantically about him, and to fall into hysteria and mental trauma at a sudden reappearance.  
This was partly true, but didn't quite cover all of it.

Irene slowly stroked the side of his face in the hazy comfort of their hotel bed.  
"You're cold." she murmured.  
"So I am."

He was very cold.  
Too cold, in fact.

And she wasn't really Irene.

He awoke with a jerk, crying out like a child, and found himself once again in a world without her.  
A world that was dark, dank and bleak.  
The dirty hovel he was occupying fitted his black mood well.

He was still cold.  
_Freezing_.

His head was pounding. The gash tingled and stung where he had been lying on it.  
He reached out a finger and prodded the undried wound tentatively.

"Yellow." he said to himself as he inspected the withdrawn digit.  
He was giddy.  
And ever so tired.

"Goodness." he muttered, wrapping both arms around himself.  
It was no use; there was no warmth to be had.

It looked pretty bad.  
He tried to sit up, managing it only with maximum effort. His limbs ached, his stomach growled ruefully.  
Meanwhile, his head whirled like a spinning top, and he clapped his hands to his face to keep himself from turning into a tornado.

Scepticemia was on the cards at the moment.  
Fever, too.

He should not have allowed grief to make him so stupid.  
He could deduce any other fellow's issues. Why so blind to his own?  
Stubborn, foolish man!

He needed a doctor. Immediately.  
If he carried on in this manner he was in real danger for certain.

Doctors. He hated doctors. Prodding, prying, chilly, clinical things.

All but one.

His thoughts fled to Watson. Watson the ever-loyal friend. Watson the medical professional.  
Perhaps if he turned up at Watson's abode in a state of near-death, he would be forgiven for pretending to die in the first place, Watson being too preoccupied with trying not to lose him all over again.

Yes. If he appeared to his companion in mortal peril, he would be in pretty much the same state as when he had flung himself over the balcony.  
Nearly dead in Switzerland to nearly dead in London.  
A minor, very manageable transition for the doctor to cope with.

Then he and Watson could make the recovery from death to non-death together, gradually.

He managed this notion with a wry smile, which turned into a wince when the gash pulled and hurt.

He hadn't the money for a cab. He had spent it all long ago, on this lying low business.  
He would have to walk to the other side of town.  
And hope for the best.

Going to pull his shoes on, then realising that they were attached to his feet already, he rose unsteadily, and made his way to the door and down the rickety stairs.

He had felt a little weak, a little light-headed yesterday, but nothing of this nature.  
His vision was blurred around the edges.

Beginning to seriously worry about his condition, he pressed on as fast as he could, using all the strength in his taught, shivering legs.

Watson. Watson. Watson would take care of the whole affair.  
Watson would get over the shock. Watson would deal with the papers.  
Watson would nurse him to health, so that in return, he could protect Watson from Moriarty's folk.

Every step he took resounded with the doctor's familiar name. Despite the banging in his head and the savage chill of his body, he felt a relief washing over him.  
The notion of homecoming and belonging and security gave him the strength to push on.

That was, until he heard the disturbing shrill cry of a woman, echoing from the alleyways up ahead.

Without his permission, his legs quickened their pace, until he was positively hobbling along.  
His breath came in wheezes, his chest a tight cage of bone around his weak lungs.

He really should be hurrying this quickly to Watson's home. He didn't have time to waste on the rescuing of other people. People who weren't himself.  
He was in more need than they, probably.

But it was a woman's cry.  
It wasn't _the _woman, but a woman nonetheless, and it drew him like a hooked and helpless fish.

He couldn't turn away from that fragile, moaning sound.  
He couldn't let another one die.

Grief hadn't only made him stupid. It had made him sentimental.  
He was probably going to pay for it.

He rounded a corner and peered into a shadowy alley, and there they were.  
Two great, hulking men were blocking his sight of the woman herself. Only her skirts, embroidered and laced in delicate hues of lilac and dark purple, could be seen between their thick legs.

Her attackers were an odd-looking pair.  
The one to Holmes' left was lean, with stringy muscles showing through his sooty overcoat. Thoroughly muddied boots. Hardened skin on the knuckles, though no recent grazes. Confident, solid stance, slightly leaning towards the balls of his feet as though constantly tensed to spring. Ill-fitting trousers.

An ex-prizefighter currently fallen on hard times, naturally dwelling in the run-down side of town.

The other was much stockier, like a bull, without hardened skin but with a dominant, no-nonsense air, flat-footed and slow. Clothes still sooty and boots still muddy, but worn by scrubbing, and decidedly cleaner than the first man's.

Professional bodyguard, used to discipline, not used to losing a fight.

"Hold, gentlemen!" the brave detective cried, without as much effect as he'd wished for, as his voice sounded croaky and weak, and he leaned heavily against the alley wall for support.

They both turned, and the first thing that he noticed was that they had identical, crude symbols stitched into their lapels, just beneath the throat on the right hand side. It was a small, very rough picture of a newt or salamander - likely the latter, as the thread was fiery orange. It was straight as an arrow, even the tail, as though dead and pinned in a nature museum.

The second thing he was drawn to was their choice of weapons. The outline of a gun showed within one's pocket, but he also carried a strip of cloth. The other held a short reel of skinny rope.

Holmes barely took all of this in, moving in a hazy, vague world of images and information.

The fellows looked at one another, before advancing upon him menacingly.  
Instinctively he brushed over them with his eyes, searching for chinks in their armour.

The prizefighter had a nose broken several times in the past. Starting point.  
He also shuffled a little, using his left leg less. A recent hurt or old injury, Holmes couldn't tell in his state.

The bodyguard looked invincible at first, but then the detective remembered the gun in the prizefighter's pocket.  
Take him down first, use the gun on the bodyguard.  
He needed a distraction for the burly bloke before the gun-pointing could take place, however.

He paused, closed his eyes, made up his mind, and nodded once to himself.  
He whipped off his coat, shivering in the cold, but standing firm.

The bodyguard got there first, which was what he wanted.

Coat: thrust upwards and fan out. Over the face and head.  
Take the opportunity. Duck out of his way. Trip him up with a simply placed foot, as he bumbled onwards.

Bodyguard on the floor. Approximately seven seconds

Punch to the prizefighter's nose. Block first blow, intended left upper cut. Block right hand, backup blow.  
Strike nose again. Blood streaming. Pain searing.  
Take the opportunity. Swift upper cut, knock him off his feet.

Stomp on bad leg. Again.  
Femur bone cracks.

Duck out of way of bodyguard's slow swipe.  
Hand in prizefighter's pocket. Gun heavy, so loaded. Good.

Safety catch. Finger on trigger. Turn to point.  
Bodyguard frozen mid-lunge.

Swift kick to prizefighter's head to prevent further interruption. Mild concussion likely.

"Steady on, fella. Steady on." the bodyguard said, shaking Holmes out of his cold-blooded mode.  
He was holding his hands up, looking very warily at the barrel of the gun that was still being pointed at him.

The woman now behind Sherlock hadn't said a word, or even screamed.  
His legs weren't going to hold him up for much longer.

"What's going to happen if I lower the gun?" he asked, in a wheezing tone.  
The alley was swaying and spinning terribly.  
He hadn't much time.

"I'll walk away, quiet-like." the villain answered.  
"Is that the truth?"  
"Sure is, Sir, sure is."

"Don't listen to him." finally, the female's voice rang out, "Please, disable him or I shall be carried off!"  
"Now, listen here." Holmes said to his opponent, "I am about to faint, so I had better shoot you in the leg or something. I apologise."

"No, don't! I beg of you, Sir -"  
"Sssssshhhhhh." he quieted him, hardly knowing what he was saying, "I'm not aiming to kill. I cannot have you ruining all my good work."

He stumbled where he stood, and the criminal saw his chance. He leapt for Holmes, murder suddenly in his eyes.  
The crack of the gun echoed along the alleyway, but it rang hollow in Sherlock's ears.

His vision was disappearing.

"I told you so." he informed the man who was cradling his ankle on the floor, screeching in pain, "You may - thank me - later. And _yoouu_ -" he span to face the woman, "can thank me now, then escort me to..."

He never got another sound out. He had been making to bow politely to her, but instead crumpled in a heap upon the ground, limbs askew, shivering and shaking violently.

Delicate footsteps running towards him were the last thing he heard.  
_Watson_, he thought, just once, before falling.


	3. Chapter 3

Short update, but that means there's more coming soon! Keep reviewing and thanks so much.

* * *

3  
The lion's roar, the lion's roar  
Is something I have heard before  
A children's tale  
The lonesome wail  
Of the lion's roar.

* * *

He arose from unconsciousness only very gradually.  
At first he could hear things. But his ears were clumsy; he couldn't make out the source or nature of any sounds, only that they existed, and that his brain was reacting to them slightly.

He drifted in a half-world, a world that he would not remember when he awoke.

He didn't notice that he vomited often, though his carers certainly did.  
He didn't understand that the reason for his overwhelming feeling of excruciating unwellness was due to the elevated rate of his pressured heart, and the accelarated respiration that pumped more and more oxygen around his infected body.

He didn't worry about the painful inflammation of his every limb and part.  
He didn't register the damage being done to his organs, caused by his own body's immune response to the intrusive bacteria.

That was, until he jerked back to life with a sudden gasp as a needle was inserted into the crook of his arm.

"Hush, now." a gentle voice reprimanded him, "He's awake."

He turned to the side and retched violently, but as with the last three times he had done so in his sleep, he brought nothing back up. There was nothing in his stomach, not even bile, to regurgitate.

He reeled where he lay, everything hitting him at once.  
Everything hurt. Everything felt wrong.

"Watson!" he cried, "_Watson_!"  
"Who? Who do you need? Tell me their name." came the voice again.

"_John Watson_!" he struggled to answer, falling back against the pillows in a complete loss of energy, "_Bring him - to me_."

A slight pressure was removed from the mattress he was lying upon, and his impaired vision revealed to him only a blur of lilac in the shape of a woman's dress, as it left the room.

An equally hazy figure, holding something sharp in one hand, bent over him.

Terrified, his body straining at full pelt to keep him alive, he fainted away and knew no more.


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note_: I have done research into septic infection, the degrees of danger that it can cause, and the progress of antibiotic medicine throughout history.

A man in Germany was going about discovering _antibacterials_ in the late 1880's.

So, for the sake of this story, Watson has managed to get hold of this information and import the new medicine through Holmes, who (obviously) has a lot of contacts in different countries, that come under the categories of "_Clever Men_" and "_Men Who Fit Into The Plot Of This Narrative_".

Otherwise there is no cure for Sepsis in the 1800s, Holmes will die, and I shall have no story!

* * *

4  
_Too fragile, this place, and I'm holding my breath  
__This is my head, stuck in the sun  
__This is the cold that resides in my hand  
__And we have learned all there is about silence._

* * *

The bell was ringing as though a maddened devil was hanging off it outside.  
"Josephine!" John shouted down the stairs, "Would you hurry up and answer that? It sounds urgent!"

That girl really did take her time.  
John was becoming impatient with her. She wasn't at all like Mrs. Hudson - and of course, she wouldn't be. She was a maid. And they could barely afford to keep her as it was.

"Josephine!" he fairly yelled again, and eventually footsteps came running, and the frantic doorbell was replaced by slightly calmer voices.  
Only slightly.

From what he could deduce, their visitor was a female, and a distraught one at that.  
Mary entered the study and stood staring at him, in a kind of mild bewildered concern.

"It's a woman. A frightened woman." she remarked softly.  
"Yes, Mary. She does sound rather distressed, doesn't she."  
"Do you know who it is?"  
"I don't recognise the voice one jot."

Apparently Josephine didn't recognise her face, either, because she called up the stairs, "A stranger to see you, Sir! Apparently on urgent business!"

"Perhaps it's a patient in immediate danger."  
"Yes, darling." he threw back at his wife obligingly, as he limped out of the room and descended to the front door without haste.

He wasn't in the mood for urgent business.  
He hadn't heard words like _urgent business _tossed around in such a way since... well, since _that _time.

He didn't even dare to think of a name, but his heart felt skewered upon an invisible knife regardless.  
The months that had passed since his swift and grey-coloured return to England had not healed him in the slightest.

Every day, in his mind, he still stood leaning over that solid balcony, looking down into an impenetrable barrier of mist and water. The gulf of hell - his own, personal hell.  
The bottomless pit that had swallowed his truest friend and companion, mercilessly, without a hint of remorse.

What was that phrase of Nietzsche's? - _If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you._

He had gazed into those endless, dizzy depths, and they had looked back up at him. Looked long and hard, with a cold, unrepenting, all-seeing stare. It had imprinted something upon his soul that was black, and poisonous, and relentless.

It had jeered at him, because it had taken the one thing he could not now live without.

He suddenly realised that he had been staring straight at his visitor without greeting her for quite some time.  
Rather, staring straight through her.  
She looked uncomfortable under his otherworldly gaze.

"John Watson?" she enquired politely, though firmly. She was obviously on _very _urgent business.  
"That would be me."  
"I need you to come with me, without delay. There is a man in my house dying of sepsis, and he has specifically required that you see him. He is barely sane."

John's stomach turned over.

"Did he say what his name was?"  
"Not at all. He scarcely knows himself. He is unconscious for most of the time. He desperately needs your aid - please, come with me quickly."

He had no idea who this strange demanding man could be, but now that Death was looming over the situation, he lost no time. He was not the man to remain cool and self-absorbed when somebody's life hung in the balance.

Running back up to his study, he gathered his emergency medical kit together, taking care to include the wedding gift Holmes had once given him, and the newfangled _antibacterial_ concoctions that were apparently an effective cure for a vast scope of infections and illnesses.

He hadn't tried them out yet, but this was as good a time as any.

The sudden rush of adrenaline, the notion that he was _needed_, dampened the sense of hollow agony that he had felt so acutely only moments ago.

Flying back down the steps, throwing on his frock coat and donning a hat, he called out to Mary that he must run off, and that it was indeed an endangered patient.  
He swiftly followed the still-nameless woman out onto the street, slamming the door behind him.

His steps were brisk, without a hint of a limp.  
He was attending _urgent business _once again.


End file.
